Net Neutrality Alert ... Action Needed Now

By: mosquitopest
Published On: 12/11/2006 1:22:19 AM

FCC TRYING A DECEMBER SURPRISE

According to The Nation,  FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has bent the rules to force FCC commissioner Robert McDowell to "un-recuse" himself and vote on the telecommunications merger issue.

The FCC Chairman appears to have an unreported, unacknowledged conflict of interest himself.  Allegedly, FCC Chair Kevin Martin has plans to run for Governor of NC and he is hoping to be able to have the favor returned with lots of telecommunications money for his campaign coffers.  Therefore, he is trying to rush the telecommunications merger of AT&T and Bell South throught the FCC with NO NET NEUTRALITY GUARANTEES.  Martin knows that the new Congress will not go along with such a maneuver.

Martin is IGNORING the voices of the overwhelming majority of the American people who continually contact the FCC making their voices heard to preserve  Net Neutrality.  The difficulty is that Martin only appears to "hear" the voices of the special lobbyists with money.

Contact the FCC toll free  at 1-866-418-0232 to voice your concerns and ask how to file an official complaint to stop this merger from occurring in December with no Net Neutrality guarantee.. . You might ask who you call to report a the FCC Chair's possible conflict of interest in this matter.

Martin is undermining the public interests he is supposed to be protecting.

It's also a good idea to contact the new Democratic leaders of Congress and members of the Senate Commerce Committee and ask them to intervene to prevent the FCC from selling us out on Net Neutrality to the telecommunications industry.  The subcommittee members phone numbers are here.

Act now and SAVE NET NEUTRALITY.

Comments



We are getting alerts from all over the country on this (Used2Bneutral - 12/11/2006 3:05:54 PM)
This is not just Net Neutrality, it is ALL the bad stuff that the Phone companies couldn't get through the Senate in time.... there is language in this that will defund Public access TV, eliminate College TV cable stations they use for distance learning, and all sorts of stuff they couldn't get past the threats of a Filabuster in the Senate by Dems and even some Republicans. 

This is the last ditch effort by the big phone companies to ram through many harmful changes to the consumers to benefit of big business ONLY. If it lowers cable rates, that will only be in the rich suburbs not the lower middle class and other areas where they will see increases because competition will essentially be not-required.

Everybody that was scared this would happen during the "Lame-duck" session is now hitting the panic button....  the hearings on this will be webcast today in fact right now....

We expect a vote by December 20th. 

After Wednesday December 13th, public comment and meetings will be formally cut-off. 

FCC Nashville hearing at 2 pm today, Mon., 12/11.

rtsp://tv.indybay.org/FCC_Nashville.sdp



couple of corrections..... (Used2Bneutral - 12/11/2006 3:12:11 PM)
try http://tv.indybay.or... and since it is coming from Nashville it is Centtral time zone 2 PM.


Link to lodge a complaing online (mosquitopest - 12/11/2006 9:05:30 PM)
Here's th url addy to lodge an online complaint about the FCC action  http://action.freepr...

The netroots is worth fighting for folks....



It seems to me that (HOTI - 12/12/2006 3:24:06 PM)
McDowell doesn't necessarily have a conflict of interest given that his former employer, CompTel, is opposed to the merger and he is likely to vote in favor of the merger from what I have read. 

I have been following the net neutrality debate for a while in my work with the Hands Off the Internet coalition. IMO it makes much more sense to address the issue industry-wide instead of in a single proposed merger.  Obviously this issue will return in the 110th Congress when the telecommunications act is debated and that would seem to be the best means to debate net neutrality.